


Men of No Living Nation

by Aliana



Series: Back to Middle-earth Month 2012 [2]
Category: Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Drabble Sequence, Gen, Meta, World War I
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-18
Updated: 2012-03-18
Packaged: 2017-11-02 03:05:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/364303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aliana/pseuds/Aliana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Can we find correctives in No Man's Land?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Men of No Living Nation

**Author's Note:**

> March 2  
>  **B2MeM Challenge:** We - _Deep Thoughts_  
>  Real Estate - _Economy_  
>  March 8th - The Dead receive their summons - _March 3019, TA_  
>  **Format:** Drabble pair  
>  **Genre:** Drama  
>  **Rating:** Teen  
>  **Warnings:** Disturbing imagery  
>  **Characters:** JRR Tolkien, The Dead

**1916**

The signalman peers over the edge. In no man’s land, the ground’s gray and pocked as the skin of some invalid. Studded with shells, pierced with barbed wire.

And the bodies, broken and riddled as the earth, but not of it. Some half-in, half-out of craters, arms outstretched, eyes staring. Others face-down in the mud. The ones whose retreat was not swift enough. They are the in-between: neither in one trench nor the other, half-buried but not interred, in a place to which no owner can lay deed or claim.

John wonders if they are waiting to be called home.

**3019**

They are the gray ones, the ragged ones, lingering. A collection of bitter riddles: Bound by the earth but no longer in its embrace; whispers without speech; regret without recollection. Men of no living nation, bearing standards of smoke, and breathing, breathless, half-recollected songs of ash. Faces and voices worn to sameness as rocks on a riverbed, _I_ s and _You_ s now faded to an eternal _We_.

_We wait._

Then, the summons.

Memories stir, time folds in on itself as a weather-worn pennant. They will go, then, and cross the distance, cross the un-hallowed ground that stands between them and release.


End file.
